participation award
by CampionSayn
Summary: History and Etymology for Talent: Middle English, from Old English talente, from Latin talenta, plural of talentum unit of weight or money, from Greek talanton pan of a scale, weight.


History and Etymology for Talent: Middle English, from Old English talente, from Latin talenta, plural of talentum unit of weight or money, from Greek talanton pan of a scale, weight.

* * *

Once the war was over and the rebuilding was near done and the year had passed since their lives had been torn topsy-turvy because of the psychopath that ruled the Quincy...well, things had been the same kind of different as they always seemed to be in Karakura.

Except, perhaps, the restlessness that seemed to writhe through Chad every now and again when he wasn't expecting it.

When he was cooking breakfast and suddenly looked towards the east at the sun low enough in the sky that it wouldn't blind him, but still made him squint-and then flinch as some grease from the pan sparked and fizzled onto his skin.

When he was studying in the library, usually with Ishida, and Chad tilted his head to the nearest window with a little wind blushing and bashing against the grass and flowers that were all the more inviting in the summer months. Sometimes Ishida asked what was wrong and Chad would shake his head like a sleepy puppy, lying about getting hung up on a question for a test coming up in their last year of high school, or wondering aloud whether or not they should drag Ichigo in to join their study sessions. This often worked in getting Ishida to snort and continue reading whatever he had been previously.

When he was out buying groceries in the evenings with Ichigo and Rukia, the both of them arguing about the merits of eating more fruits or more vegetables when Chad was already built like a tank and why he didn't seem to need to eat more meat. Chad glancing over his shoulder at a light chill riding his shoulders that didn't come from the air conditioning in the store as he counted his money, some of the coins only the barest splinter of weight in his palm.

Eventually he decided to figure out why he seemed to always be facing towards Uruhara's and took a walk one day not more than fifteen minutes after his breakfast. It was a weekend and he didn't have anything better to do as it was, anyway.

* * *

"Ahhh, Sado-kun, welcome! We weren't expecting you here today."

Kisuke stood behind the counter with his hat placed before him, fan waving before his face to make up for there being no significant cold air coming from his busted A/C unit he still hadn't fixed because it was basically a hiding spot for candy he didn't want his kids to eat.

"No," Chad nodded, removing his shoes and padding on through to the back without so much as a continuation or explanation for his winding up in the shop.

He had a feeling what he needed was in the back, seeing as Urahara squawked and tripped out of his sea, following after the giant and seeming nervous.

The portal to Hueco Mundo was wide and open, but it felt...it just felt different from the last time he'd been before it. It seemed somehow softer around the edges and it didn't sound like a droning refrigerator that had trouble refilling the ice cube tray.

"You've been opening this quite often recently," Chad said, no question in his voice, just a simple statement of fact, "I couldn't help but wonder why."

Urahara chuckled in the most fake way he could, before Chad continued.

"Then I realized I haven't seen Inoue around as often as I should. Tatsuki has a new job with Keigo and Mizuiro, so they wouldn't notice; Ichigo and Rukia are busy as usual with stray Hollows; Ishida is working more than he probably should, trying to study medicine and fashion design at the same time."

He paused, considering his words, and stepping closer to the portal.

"I've been working and studying and thinking about the future. We've all been so busy, we haven't noticed the Inoue is only really ever in school with us, and then she disappears. I don't think any of us have seen her while we've all been together, in something like, nine weeks."

When he turned to look at the look on Kisuke's face, the little knot in his stomach tightened and then loosened, waiting.

"Well, to be fair, it's not like she hasn't been busy herself," the scientist stated, handing over Chad's shoes he'd picked up from the front, "It's just that her talent lies somewhere else."

Chad tugged on his shoes and was glad he decided on wearing his leather and denim, strong but soft, durable but not suffocating. Hueco Mundo wasn't really known to be a forgiving landscape.

"Although, to be honest," Kisuke smirked as Chad stood up, looking the giant over in much the way Yoruichi did so often, "I think she wanted it to be a surprise. But if you insist on going..."

* * *

_So, she went back._

Chad stepped into the endless night of the white sands and looked out onto the landscape to find the horizon not entirely the same as it had been on all of his previous visits.

Here something green had come to exist. As well as blue that reflected the moon's waning.

He almost stepped on a patch of yellow clustered here and there in circles that he never would have imagined existing in the Hollow realm. His eyes widened as he stepped around the bushels of dandelions waving up at him from what appeared to be new spring grass growing from the white-white-white world.

Maybe not so white anymore, though.

He blinked once more at the wildflowers and then moved onto the barely there path that Inoue had doubtlessly called forth to flow like animal tracks through the actual trees that had grown to heights nobody could have imagined possible in a place with eternal night.

But, as he followed along, he noted the difference between living world...things...and what stood before him on his walk.

The sand became firmer underfoot, with the spiritual pressure in the air thinning out, but still existing, as there seemed to be something of a thin mist floating high above his head like it was trying to become clouds. The dandelions weren't quite so soft as he had initially assumed, something sharper and solid about them that wasn't similar back in the world of the living; their stems a bit like the veined tree stems that grew from some Greek Islands he'd seen in science class.

But the trees that grew as he neared what smelled like water as he headed up a hill towards Las Noches…

There was no mistaking them. He still had dreams where he remembered his childhood in Mexico and, oh, the trees he was walking through were the spitting replica-if not somewhat strange, due to the spiritual energy radiating through them.

Black Poui sprawling and in bloom; Ilama here and there and all heavy with their heart shaped fruits; Copperwood that would put the ones he grew up with to shame in their massive size, lending shade to the trail and their shed skins casually lying about beneath them with tiny Hollow animals skittering around here and there as he passed.

"Hime-san! Hime-san! Look, look! There's more fish in the Manny Roves roots!"

"Mangrove roots, Nel-chan."

He had been right about the water, he was happy to find, as he ascended to the top of the incline.

Miles and miles of water, fresh water, from what the Mangroves growing along the shorelines in droves at great height implied. Calm and with little movement, little islands dotting and cresting here out and about from his line of sight and beyond.

And in the thick of it Inoue stood upon a little island of black rock covered in silvery moss. She wore only very worn stirrup leggings without shoes and an oversized denim t-shirt he'd only seen her wear once when their school volunteered them to clean a city park; the words "Let's Get Trashed" emblazoned in a crude graffiti text set across the center.

Her fairies were fluttering about as well, all wild energy forming from her will as her hands motioned here and there from water's edge to treeline-reforming bits and pieces of things that must have been lost to the Hollow world for millennia. Long before any of them had entered, to be sure...

Surrounding her on all sides were familiar Arrancar and Espeda they'd come to know through the war and beyond. Some lazing about on the shoreline with their toes in the water, some actively set about with the purpose of trying to catch fish dashing about in the crystal clear water and looking not a little bedraggled with the wet they probably weren't used to; some were Grimmjow wading through the tide over towards Orihime with Nel perched on his head, kind of like Inoue and him were in a kind of combat, but only in jest.

Though the tiny Hollow looked adamant on using Grimmjow as her mode of transport, saying something Chad couldn't hear and causing Inoue to laugh, eyes crinkling at the edges and then blinking wide to with her answer back.

Then she saw Chad on the ridge and the smile stilled, just for a moment, before spreading again.

"Sado-kun! Welcome, welcome!"

He carried himself down to the waterside with a matching smile, enjoying the crunch of dry leaves under his feet and how the Hollows around just greeted him with slight waves and nods, basically ignoring his entrance in favor of watching Grimmjow struggle to try and remove Nel from his head and tripping over a tree root and into the water for his troubles.

Orihime gave a little puff of air in soft humor, making just the barest motion with her hands so the fairies could disengage in their air formation they would have used to block Grimmjow's...whatever he was going to do.

Three of them were quick to take the opportunity to snatch Nel out of the water and plop her on the shoreline, Tsubaki remained to perch on Inoue's shoulder-arms crossed like a petulant child and eyeing every single Hollow in the immediate area with distaste-without fail, and Chad found himself with the two healer fairies checking him over as if he might have been injured before he got there.

Chad couldn't help but notice they seemed to have gotten a little bigger since the last time he saw them.

He didn't dwell on it though, as they seemed to find nothing the matter with him and, with a little bow to him, returned to where Inoue still remained, joining Tsubaki at his watch, though far more content than the offense fairy.

"You've been very busy, Inoue," Chad remarked, pausing at the water's edge to remove his shoes and roll up his pant legs before wading in, "I've been wondering what you've been getting up to."

He looked down as some of the fish that definitely weren't from the human world swam through the silt he'd kicked up from the river bottom, some of them brushing against his skin curiously before flickering back into calmer water-away from where Grimmjow was still getting out.

"This is rather impressive."

"T-Thank you," she replied after a moment, blush painting her cheeks. Always so humble, "I was a little worried you would be mad at me."

"Mad? Why would I be mad?"

"Oh! No, not you specifically, Sado-kun. It's just...I don't think the others would approve."

"Approve of what?"

She probably didn't notice, but her hands found each other, the tips of her fingers pressing against each other, much like a small child standing before a teacher that's called them into their office without explaining the reason.

"Me...spending so much time here, I guess. Expending energy on something Soul Society doesn't really consider all that important after the war."

Ah, one of the many things the nakama had agreed to disagree about. Inoue had always been inclined towards going back to help out the Hollows that had been attacked by the Quincy and trying to help them in a really meaningful way-helping each other without war keeping them from doing it, or being the instigating event. Chad often thought that only he, Ishida and sometimes Urahara knew where she was coming from with these feelings.

The others, and he understood this but didn't exactly agree with it, felt that it would be too hard with all the bad experiences they'd had every time they had to enter Hueco Mundo.

So of course she'd gone back without telling anyone.

He took a seat on the edge of her little moss covered island, aware that everyone was basically ignoring them now that Grimmjow had dragged himself back to the shore and was trying to catch Nel while dodging the three much more high spirited fairies as they plucked at his ears and pulled at his pants or literally flew right through his Hollow Hole like it was the best game ever.

This display and this distraction was good, because he wanted his next words to sink in for her, but without calling attention to them. This felt a bit like a private moment; one they hadn't had with each other in quite some time because he thought they were all beyond that-or, hoped they were beyond that.

He supposed nobody ever outgrew having serious conversations with the important people in their lives.

"It's important to you," he stated firmly, "And it's your power; you do what you like with it. Especially when it turns out like this. This is beautiful."

He was glad to feel her take a more comfortable position, their backs touching, their spines almost perfectly aligned. Her head leaning back to touch the spot right between his shoulders.

Chad followed the motion, finding the silver mercury moon above them decorated and framed by clouds in the colors of bronze and gold, like ribbons trying to pin themselves to a medal.

"It is."


End file.
